Mass Seaweed-Gathering Day To Highlight RI Shoreline Access Issue

CHARLESTOWN, RI — Shoreline rights advocate Scott Keeley is organizing a seaweed collection day at Charlestown Town Beach and he’s inviting everyone who cares about public access to the shore to join in.

Keeley is selling special cloth bags emblazoned with the word “seaweed” on one side. The other side has a phrase from the Rhode Island state constitution, The Boston Globe reports.

“The people shall continue to enjoy and freely exercise the rights of the fisher, and privileges of the shore, to which they have been heretofore entitled, under the charter and usages of the state,” it says.

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Rhode Island law says people have the right to access the shore for activities such as fishing, swimming, and — you guessed it — collecting seaweed. A state Supreme Court case set the boundary between private property and public shoreline access at the mean high tide line over a 18.6-year cycle — a line not easily demarked by the average citizen.

Keeley was arrested by South Kingstown police in June 2019 while collecting seaweed on a Rhode Island beach. Private homeowners had said the beach was theirs. In court, the trespassing charges were dropped. Keeley sued the town and settled for $25,000.

Keeley said the tote bags will sold on his website, ShorelineRights.org. He’s hoping they arrive in time for his mass seaweed collection event on June 26.

Meanwhile, the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council is working to identify and map all public rights-of-way to the shore, and conducting a public education campaign about shoreline access.

Read more at The Boston Globe.